On the pulse

At the RCN Congress in Liverpool this week, some of the most pressing issues facing the nursing profession were on the agenda. In particular, two stories covered by Nursing Times highlighted the need for greater awareness of the value of some nursing roles.

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Why are so many student nurses experiencing “bad” placements?

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I'm at the point were I should be applying for jobs but havnt as im questioning if I want to do this anymore. It's not the job that's puts me off or the patients, I love them both, but it's my bad run of placements, poor teaching, and experiences of staff on the wards. The placement I have just finished had me in tears on the last day because I hadn't had any meetings about progress, a back to work meeting after time off due to surgery, My hours were not signed off and half of my paper work was not filled in. I was told if I wanted it filled then I would have to come back onto the ward after my university dead line and work the weekend for them (I suspect they did this on purpose as they are massively understaffed) . 1 I was not insured to do so after this day as my placement was finished. 2 I had already worked over 40 hours this week and I was still recovering from surgery as one of my surgical incisions was infected and I was on antibiotics. 3 it's not fair that I should suffer due to poor management and support. Honestly you couldn't write it. I did not do one medication round whilst at this placement despite asking and offering as I could counter sign for them. Most days there was only 1 trained on and another staff would be taken from another ward to help. I would be given 20 jobs to do in 5 minutes and before those 5 minutes were up I would have another 20 jobs to do with no support. My experience was the exact same as all the other students from different universities on this placement at the same time. It's unfair and not a good learning environment and quite frankly it does not set us up well for when we are qualified. The quality of nurses coming through is dwindling because we are not getting a good standard of placements which in turn directly effects patient care, stress levels, and the efficiency of wards themselves in the long run. I love to learn and nursing is a commitment to continue to learn throughout your career as research and methods develop new strategies of care. So why are there so many people failing us students? I know staffing levels are horrendous and quite frankly it's scary but that's not going to get better if our experiences remain the same. I'm looking at my situation now like this.... I'm not far off qualified, 5 months to go and I feel like I'm going to be walking into a nightmare. I don't feel like I know enough, I know I havnt had the support or teaching I should have had so I feel at a disadvantage dispite my enthusiasm to learn. I'm walking into a work force that is massively under staffed and the situation is only going to get worse. I've had to stop reading the comments from other nurses ect on the NMC media posts as they are putting massive doubts into my head as they all want to leave. I don't know what to do anymore. I am getting in debt to do this course, the very least I should receive is a high level of support and education. The only reason I did not walk out from my placement early on that last day is because I know the patients would of suffered due to their being 1 less person there when there wasn't any where near enough to begin with. I'm really praying that on my last placement i will meet the nurse that wants to share their years of wisdom with me and show off their skills and help me to develop and perfect mine. I know he or she is out there, hopefully I meet them in time!

Posted date

10 March, 2018

Posted time

4:59 am

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